Catholic Melinda Gates reveals plans to put contraception ‘on the global agenda’ and make it her primary public health priority

Facing backlash from the Catholic Church on an already controversial issue, Bill Gates’ wife Melinda announced this week that contraception will be the primary goal of their foundation, with plans to revolutionize it globally.

Bill and Melinda founded the Gates Foundation 12 years ago and it has since become the world’s largest philanthropic organization. It was while visiting communities in Africa during vaccination programs that she became aware of how many women wanted contraception.

She revealed in an interview with Newsweekthat she has decided to make family planning her signature issue and primary public health a priority.

She announced late last year to her staff that her ‘goal is to get it back on the global agenda’.

The $34bilion foundation is putting this into practice from July, when it teams up with the British government to cosponsor a summit of world leaders in London. Their goal? To start raising the $4billion the foundation says it will cost to get 120 million more women access to contraceptives by 2020.

As well as funding contraception in developing countries, the foundation are also planning on spending money on finding new methods of birth control including self-injectable contraception and birth control pills which work without hormones.

Mrs Gates told Newsweek: ‘When I started to realize that that needed to get done in family planning, I finally said, “OK, I’m the person that’s going to do that”.’

A practicing Catholic, she has always disagreed with the church’s position on contraception though has always been anti-abortion.

She said going public about issues that are against the Catholic faith was difficult but she believes by doing so she was fulfilling another part of Catholicism.

‘I had to wrestle with which pieces of religion do I use and believe in my life, what would I counsel my daughters to do.

‘Defying church teachings was difficult, but also came to seem morally necessary. Otherwise, we’re not serving the other piece of the Catholic mission, which is social justice.’

Mrs Gates however has already been criticized by the Catholic right. After her first public speech on the issue at a TEDxChange conference in Berlin early last month, she was immediately attacked for promoting abortion and going against Catholic doctrine.

However her speech focused on contraception, a topic she said should not be a controversial one, and did not promote abortion in any way.

The U.K. Catholic Herald’s Francis Phillips said: ‘It is always a disappointment when a public figure of great wealth, standing or power explains that although they are loyal Catholics they think Church teaching is wrong – predictably on moral matters.’

Mrs Gates told Newsweek that she wants to move contraception away from demographics and more towards women’s needs.